Unexpected Refuge

I ended up here when my regular dentist recommended me to this specific specialist to take care of a tricky dental situation. Today is likely my last visit here as the work has been completed and this specialist is releasing me back to my regular dentist.

I have sat in a lot of dentist’s chairs in my life. I bounced face first onto pavement when I was 11 or 12 years old after hitting a patch of gravel on my bicycle when I was racing my uncle. I picked myself up then walked into my parents yard as blood dried on my shirt and skin with my upper front four teeth resting jagged and broken in my gums. When I was 17 years old I failed to stop mom and dad’s green Dodge Coronet in time and plowed into the back of an old beat-up red Chevrolet Impala while a brown GMC pick-up sandwiched us from the rear. Somehow in all that movement, two of my front bottom teeth slammed into the steering wheel leaving me with a fat, busted lip, a cut tongue and those two broken teeth. These times don’t even explain the one time when I was even younger and an older dentist removed one of my back teeth. No one in the family remembers why he did this but when I mention that dentist’s name some family members just smile to indicate a more up-to-date knowledge of dental procedures had not reached this particular dentist at that time.

Then over the years, I have sat in a dentist’s chair and had cleanings, adjustments and all sorts of procedures designed to keep my teeth, or what’s left of them, intact and somewhat pretty. I have worn enough paper bibs to understand how I want them to rest on me when they are placed around my neck. I have sat there looking at the various tools around me dreading which one would be used on my mouth that very day. I have sat there wincing at a needle piercing some part of my mouth in an attempt to lessen the pain I would feel later all the while knowing the medication being administered increases the chances I will say or do something silly even later. I have rinsed and spit my fair share of blood, grit, mouthwash and fluoride stuff to know how to catch the dribble from my lip that feels larger than life from the medicine. I have had enough suction to pull my insides out. I have crushed a couple of boxes worth of tissues in my hand, one tissue at a time, in anticipation, or sometimes, in full realization of pain. I have sat there enough times with some instrument protruding from my mouth to learn how to carry on a halfway decent conversation with the dentist oblivious to my immediate impediment to talking at that moment. I have sat here enough times to know it is not the world's most relaxing place. I have been here. I have done that. I have the insurance claims and outstanding bills to show for it all.

But now, this place, this time.

This office sits on a busy corner on a busy street in a busy city. Mid-afternoon finds the waiting area so full I stand for a few minutes before I am called to the back for my appointment. The office is shared among five or six specialists so once a body walks out of the reception area it becomes a labyrinth of rooms and offices. On this day, I am led through the maze of rooms to one specific room and seated there while some preliminaries are resolved. This visit should be short, just a matter of looking at the work completed weeks earlier so this specialist can admire his handiwork then give his approval passing me back to my regular dentist.

For a few moments I sit here alone, waiting. Just above my line of sight is a row of windows divided by four thin partitions. All I can see from here is the blue sky, a few puffy clouds behind strings of electrical and phone lines running east to west. In the background I hear a song from yesterday softly playing:

“Put the message in the box

Put the box into the car

Drive the car around the world

Until you get heard.”

The rushing traffic on the nearby street fades. The busyness of the waiting area is a memory. All the many things going on in my world that crowd my heart and mind for space slip into this moment, forgotten, lost, quieted by the pretty blue sky, the passing white clouds, those lines stretching before my eyes and the hum of a familiar nearly forgotten song.

And, I sit here in this chair, like so many times before. This time, I exhale, close my eyes and smile, grateful to find a momentary refuge in an unexpected place and time.

World Party "Put The Message In A Box" written by Karl Edmond de Vere Wallinger

A Four-Year-Old Questions Mystery

I am spending time in this space highlighting some questions posed now and then by our four-year-old daughter, Hannah. Each year of her life has been magical to us as we watch her grow before our very eyes. Four-years-old though has been the most unique age thus far. This could be because we are living through it at this moment so it is fresh every day to us. Maybe this age seems so special because Hannah has a better grip on her vocabulary. She may not understand every word she hears, or for that matter, uses, but she does string together words into sentences and questions much easier and fluidly than ever before. Add to that the natural curiosity someone her age has and we find the questions flow from her endlessly and seemingly effortlessly.

Answering her questions is not always easy from our viewpoint. Sometimes she asks questions that frankly we just don’t know the answer. Sometimes the question she asks is much more complicated and involved that just a simple one or two word answer so breaking it down in to easy-to-understand bite-size chunks seems impossible. Sometimes she has trouble finding the exact right words to use to ask her question in a way we can understand. Other times, we just are not attuned enough to her at that moment to figure out what she is asking. And so, sometimes, it is all a mystery.

That brings us to a question posed by Hannah a number of times recently. “Guess what?” How is that for a very broad and wide-ranging question? Such a question may come from the learning process she is rapidly engaging in, some place within her where she learns something then needs an outlet to share what she has learned. It may be a mechanism to reinforce what she has learned. No matter the reasons such a question is asked when that question is boiled down to its very core, there is only one reply any person can give such a question in return and that is in the form of another question, “What?”

Beyond that though, Hannah, let me encourage you to never stop asking that question. Keep asking “guess what?” Asking that question shows your curiosity. It shows your willingness to share what you know with others. And since asking that question has a bit of mystery wrapped all around it, know that quality can be good at times, too.

As with most everything good in life, know this mysterious curiosity has a bad side. During your life, you will learn things about people who ask you to keep what they tell you to yourself because they don’t want others to know what they tell you. This can be tricky because sometimes what you learn may require you to test your friendship because it will test the trust you have with this person against what you know is right and wrong in your heart. Always go with what you know is right in your heart. Doing so may cost you a friendship but it may save you or your friend in other ways. Other times though others will trust you enough to share secrets with you. When they do so please understand the value they are placing in you to hold safe their secret to not tell others what you said you would tell no one else.

Other times people may tell you things about people that you are just better off not knowing. Gossip is enticing. Gossip though so rarely has a good outcome. Do not lend an ear to those who revel in such. If you do, try even harder not to repeat what they have told you. You would not want to be treated in such a way, so stay above the fray and don’t participate in such idleness. 

Instead embrace that natural curiosity within you that makes you want to burst through the door at the end of a day to tell me or your mom or your best friend, “Guess what?!” Be willing to take that enthusiasm you have of knowing what you know and channel it so that you can tell others who may not know what you know but may benefit from knowing what you know. Come to know when a well-timed “Guess what?” can add so much more to a moment such as the moment when you ace a major test or land your dream job or become engaged to be married. All those moments, and so many more that will come to hold so much meaning in life to you will almost always begin with that two word question, “Guess what?” So, keep asking and always keep us guessing.

The Swing of Things

It’s not much to look at really, its metal is bent, shaped into a swing set then wrapped in tan and blue. It has a plastic slide, a swinging teeter-totter and a place for two stand-alone swings, one standard and the other replaced with a bucket swing when Hannah was younger so that she could hang on without falling. One set of grandparents bought it and the other set of grandparents put it together. It sets in the most level part of our backyard, down a small hill near an oak tree and in front of the woods where the mosquitoes dance and an exotic owl sometimes comes out late during the dark to vocalize some mysterious nocturnal song.

Some days it is the hub of activity for Hannah. Usually, we spend time here in the warmer times, spring, when the grass grows wild in spots, summer, when the grass becomes crunchy underneath the sun and autumn, when the grass is covered by the leaves of the big oak. Recently though, during a winter day, the temperature warmed to record levels in advance of rain, and we found ourselves in the backyard hanging out at the swing set.

When we are here, I never quite know what to expect from Hannah. Some days, she is quiet, as if she is working out some issue in her mind. Other days, she talks, as some of my people might say, ninety miles a minute. On this particular day, Hannah was rather chatty.

She passed getting in the bucket swing deciding her time here would be spent on the big solo swing. She is still not quite tall enough to position herself just-so to get in the swing without any help but she chose the swing anyway on this day. I helped her into the swing and slowly began swinging her. As she swayed back and forth, her small hands gripping the chains supporting the swing, we would talk about a lot of things important to her. Early on during this swing time, we discussed Mickey Mouse and the various characters on that TV show. I tried to get her to agree with me how Pete is really the show’s most valuable character but she would have no part of my persuasion on this day, instead she favored Minnie.

Christmas was a recent memory on this day. Still, Hannah sang songs which weren’t necessarily Christmas songs but songs she had made up then had set to the tunes of various Christmas songs. She would make up a song that might include family members going off to rescue a princess. This song would then be sung to the tune of “Santa Claus Is Comin’ To Town.” Maybe it was that song's tune, and some subliminal thought of that jolly guy, that brought up Santa Claus in our conversation.

Hannah looked to the very top of our house. There, she spotted a small pipe that serves as a release outlet for one of our bathroom's exhaust fans. Hannah then wondered how Santa Claus could possibly fit down that "chimney". I chuckled, informing her that our chimney was on the other side of the house from where we were at that moment hidden from our view. I assured her our chimney was big enough for Santa Claus. This satisfied her for the time although I found out a day or so later, she made her Mom walk her around the house so she could verify the location and size of the chimney.

We would talk about our neighbor’s cats, Simon, the indoor cat, who walks around the yard on a leash, and Shadow, the outdoor cat, who slips all around the neighborhood as if he were a spy on a top-secret mission. Hannah then informed me of the pets she would not mind having, a squirrel, a mouse and a guinea pig. I did not encourage her in any of these wishes secretly wondering if I should talk Shadow into patrolling our yard more often in light of Hannah’s dream list.

Hannah made me aware she was scared of giants. I would not be too fond of them either, I suppose, especially if I were small in size as Hannah is. Then, she tried to convince me how ghosts and monsters were really likable. To me, that didn’t jibe. I told her I thought I would enjoy being around giants more that I would enjoy chilling with ghosts and monsters. We agreed to disagree. A helicopter flew overhead at one point which offered me the opportunity, at her request, to explain differences between a helicopter and an airplane. A time or two, she slipped into her memory bank and pulled out random memories to talk about. One such memory, she insisted, was when she was a tiny baby. She rattled off certain details but I could not recall what she was talking about. She then remembered being at Aunt Missy’s house, sitting on the kitchen counter eating a Pop Tart.

During this entire time, I stood behind Hannah giving her a push so the swing could continue to be in motion. She may not have noticed me noticing how she would occasionally sneak a peek backward to make sure I was pushing her with both hands and not just one hand, something she has insisted I do for almost as long as we have had the swing set.

From time to time, Hannah would ask me to push her higher. Knowing the dynamics of the swing set and the ground underneath us I was a bit wary to push her too high. Her persistence though would pay off from time to time as I would test the limits of the swing’s engineering and foundation, as well as my nerves and her fears. As she soared through the air, her nearly breathless squeal would signal her approval.

The season would catch up to us though eventually. Hannah’s nose turned runny. She asked for a tissue. I told her I didn’t have one but that I could go to the car to get one from there then bring it to her. That was okay with her. I further explained to her that meant she would be in the big swing by herself while I ran that errand. She said she would be fine, so, off I went to retrieve the tissue.

As I started down the hill to return to the swing set I looked at Hannah. She had a smile on her face and while she wasn’t swinging as high as before, she was still swinging and doing so on her own, two hands wrapped around the swing chains, bottom balanced on the blue plastic seat and tiny feet snug in tiny shoes dangling just above the ground. She recognized me then exclaimed, “Daddy, I’m swinging!”

I am just a pushover when it comes to that little girl. I remember when she was so small I could literally hold her in the palm of my hand. I have cheered for her to roll over, to crawl, to pull up, to walk and to run. It all seems like just yesterday and then, in a mere moment like this, I find myself wondering how we all got to this exact point in time. Tired questions reemerge, questions pondered over time by wiser men and women than I ever hope to be. Where does the time go? How does she grow so quickly? I want her to grow up but I also want her to always be this little girl. These are the questions and feelings that swing back and forth in my mind in each season I now experience.

So, here was another moment when this whole time-moves-forward thing collides with this children-grow-up-way-too-fast thing. I seem to see some of these moments, and the roles played by me and her, so clearly: the safety of the bucket swing, the security of the two-hand push, the back-and-forth conversation about swinging higher and higher and the letting go and trusting all goes well when you aren’t around and your little girl has to trust her own instincts and abilities on her own. Little pieces of growth leading to growing up. Safety, security, conversation then letting go and trusting. I know it all has to happen even if I don’t like it, and, even if I really want to hold on to this way that it is right now just a bit longer.

I stopped the swing so Hannah could wipe her nose. Once she had completed that, we continued to swing. Again, Hannah glanced backward from time to time to assure herself of the two-handed swing. She would ask to swing higher when she wanted to be brave. Most of the talk stopped though. The singing fell silent. The mention of memories fell mute. The motion of the swing was the only sound around.

Then, with no warning, Hannah said, “Daddy, I want to swing forever.”

Me too, baby girl, me too.